


The Cold Will Kill You First

by Lliyk



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avatar Cycle, Avatar State, Curses, Drama, Established Aang/Katara, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Lore - Freeform, M/M, Mythology References, Polyamory, Porn With Plot, Spiritual Bonds, Time Skips, WIP, Zutaraang Week 2020, prompted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:48:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26526994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lliyk/pseuds/Lliyk
Summary: Aang saves them from a violent storm in the Far North. They learn just how deep their love runs while they await rescue.For Zutaraang Week 2020.There’s water sloshing around Zuko’s lungs but it comes swiftly even at the shaky grip of her fingers. She presses her bright hands over his heart and head even as she lowers her own, her lips too numb to feel what might be the telling rigidness of his. She wills him to wake between alternations of breath and healing water, tears pricking her vision when his lungs sputter back to life, a curse falling from her lifeless tongue when that’sallthat happens.“Get up,” Katara demands it of him even as she struggles to pull his soaking deadweight over her back, and even as the temper of the ocean puts cracks in her ice. She does not recognize her own salt-crackled voice. “You shoot lightning for fun, Zuko. This can’t hurt you.Get up.”But it very nearly does.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	The Cold Will Kill You First

**Author's Note:**

> **prompt:** _beach_. 
> 
> the tags are wild, i know. do not ask me how i got here — we’ll all be left scratching our heads lol. typos, probably. **comments are ♡.**

* * *

  
  
  


> _“The Ocean will tell none of It’s secrets.”_

  
  


The White Lotus had not been the first to teach her of counterparts. 

Her mother’s Story Telling words rattle around her head quicker than she can register the scene before her—quicker than she realizes that she has already dived over the edge of the ship, headed straight for volatile depths and washed out ice floes, and the fluttering speck of red that was the trigger to one of her most private of fears.

> _“The Ocean will tell none of It’s secrets, but we know them.”_
> 
> _“Secrets? How, Mother?”_
> 
> _“Well,” her mother had been braiding her hair. “Dead Men tell no Tales, but the Living Dead do.”_
> 
> _“I know that Tribe Rule.” She’d said proudly. “Daddy told us last New Moon.”_
> 
> _There had been a smile in her mother’s voice. “Of course you do my little koi. But there is something_ you _must know about this rule.”_
> 
> _“A secret?”_
> 
> _“A secret.”_

  
  
  


Distantly, over the rush of the storm, she is aware that someone is shouting her name.

> _“The Elements are meant to protect one another, to ensure harmony in this world.”_
> 
> _“I know that rule, too!”_
> 
> _“Shh, Katara.”_
> 
> _“Yes, Mother.”_

Relentless icy cold, more burn than frost, seeps quickly to her bones, the rush of spinning currents abruptly shoving her into the loudest of silences. She bullets further into the rapidly darkening blue, automatically tracking the sway of the bubbles that foam upwards towards precious, precious air.

> _“My family is of La, and you are the last of my blood. You and your brother are Heir to Our People not by your Father, but by me. Remember this.”_
> 
> _Discomfort had made her squirm. She hated Blood Tales. “I will, Mother.”_
> 
> _“Very good, Katara.” Her mother had kissed her temple. “Now listen carefully. As La, we are meant to protect our opposite from The Ocean.”_
> 
> _“Protect… the blood of The Moon?”_
> 
> _“Not quite, Daughter, though by your Father you are also that. To protect the blood of The Moon—to protect you—is more The Wind’s purpose.”_

Where is that flicker of red? In the back of her mind the seconds tick away with the unsteadiness of her heartbeat.

> _“You know that The Light of Tui must never perish in The Dark of La, just as The Dark of La must never perish in The Light of Tui_ . _Tell me, where does The Light of Tui come from?_ ”
> 
> _She’d known that Tale well, too. It used to be her favorite._
> 
> _“The Sun.”_
> 
> _“Yes, this is our secret. The blood of The Sun must never perish in The Ocean. As La, we must protect the blood of The Sun, even if it means becoming a Dead Man.”_
> 
> _“Why, Mother?”_
> 
> _“Blood of The Sun are love children of The Moon. The Wind protects them too, but_ we _are counterparts, and The Ocean herself is jealous. It will trap our Brothers in The Dark for all of eternity when not even_ we _are meant for such a fate. This is the very reason why_ we _become Living Dead in The Ocean, Katara. But you must not let this happen to you.”_

  
  


It doesn’t matter that her skin feels like it is peeling off in thick strips under the weight of her parka; she was born of ice and raised in it, too. The Ocean could fill her lungs with the raw burn of salt and _wet_ if it wanted—it could swallow her body and spirit whole in just a moment, if only she could _see_. 

> _“Dead but not Living Dead?” Being Dead was nothing to fear in The Tribes; only Death Herself; only La and The Dark if you’ve been really naughty, she knew. Sokka said so. “Why Mother?”_
> 
> _“The Ocean will tell none of It’s secrets, but we know them. Our People and our Blood Brothers will fear your new strengths, little koi, for_ you _are the_ last _Protector. The_ last _Gifted of my blood. The_ last _of La...”_

  
  


What must be a flicker of leftover lightning dulls it’s way down, showing Katara nothing but the immediate endless bottom that she knows awaits her. In the longest second of her life she recalls the glow of her healing hands, and she holds them ahead of her as she arcs around the distancing underside of the ship.

_Where?_

Debris, struggling to return.

_Where?_

Deep, scorching void of blue.

_Where?_

An outcropping of rock—the threadbare glint of something shapely and gold. A sinking ribbon of red.

Zuko’s eyes are closed and that’s _wrong_ , so Katara straddles his body and sinks them onto the flat top of ocean rock, her glowing hands working a torrent that convexes with a hard _push_ , forcing air into the space around them. Before she can think of the irony or the cleverness of it, she rips the torrent under her command from gushing to glacier; an already eradicating barrier of ice at best, but a barrier, still.

> _“Gifted?”_

  
  


There’s water sloshing around Zuko’s lungs but it comes swiftly even at the shaky grip of her fingers. She presses her bright hands over his heart and head even as she lowers her own, her lips too numb to feel what might be the telling rigidness of his. She wills him to wake between alternations of breath and healing water, tears pricking her vision when his lungs sputter back to life, a curse falling from her lifeless tongue when that’s _all_ that happens.

> _“Listen closely. The truth of The Ocean is bitter, Daughter. The Cold will kill you first.”_

  
  


“Get up,” Katara demands it of him even as she struggles to pull his soaking deadweight over her back, and even as the temper of the ocean puts cracks in her ice. She does not recognize her own salt-crackled voice. “You shoot lightning for fun, Zuko. This can’t hurt you. _Get up._ ”

> _“The truth of The Ocean is bitter, Daughter. The Cold will kill you first_. _And then… The Dark will come.”_

  
  


But it very nearly does. Keeping a pocket of air over his hanging head while holding onto him leaves no room for her to bend freely. For the first time since she can recall becoming a Master, Katara raises what feels vaguely like her right leg—maybe it’s her left, maybe it’s her imagination, but it’s definitely the North Sea’s fault—and kicks out with as much concentrated power as she can spare. Zuko’s bubble tears twice when they spiral haphazardly towards the unruly surface of the ocean, and Katara risks her hold on his arms to propel them upward with a mangled water whip that she can _sense_ but not see.

There is no time to curse about how the gasp for air she takes burns worse than the water when she crashes over the buoying currents, only time to bank all of her desperate hope into the base of her voice.

“ _Aaaang!_ ” 

Lightning streaks and splits across the sky, the thunder as deafening as the thrashing waves and howling winds. Zuko’s matted robe catches and tears on the corner of a whizzing ice floe and he almost gets whisked away from her, _again_ . There are widening black spots edging into her vision. Icy rage bellows around her failing lungs, at the storm, at the sea, at _Yue_ , who dares to grin at her in her scant crescent form from the center of the still swirling clouds.

Her teeth chatter, nipping her tongue and spilling crystallizing copper.

 _“Aaaang!_ ” 

Another cracked sheet of ice floats near, and Katara grabs at it with a scream that gets lost under a roll of thunder. She watches her arm raise and slash weakly, slipping the lip of the sheet under Zuko’s back and only barely managing to hang on by frosting her hands to the edge of it. Her fingertips are an alarming shade of indigo and so are Zuko’s lips. A frustrated sob hiccups in her chest as she latches onto that fading sense of water; she pulls at it and it slips away from her. She pushes, and is met with the feeling of hip high snow. She tries to kick her legs but they are not there. Only twin shards of sickly, nonexistent burn.

> _“The Dark will come, Daughter.”_

  
  


Katara coughs as water falls down her throat and sticks to the top of her lungs. The sea _rocks,_ a gigantic force of _pull_ that sends them soaring towards the flashing sky on an arching swell. 

Zuko is falling, she realizes. Zuko is falling and she can’t see anymore.

> _“Let it.”_
> 
> _“Why, Mother?”_
> 
> _“It is the only choice. The Wind cannot protect you anymore.”_
> 
> _“What does that mean?”_

* * *

Something is hurting but she does not remember where. 

In The Dark she does not remember what it is to taste, or feel, or hear; she does not remember see, nor fear, either, but that is not what hurts. Nothing hurts in The Dark—The Dark is calm and cradling and gentle once It envelopes you. It protects, like a Mother; like She.

> _“Let it.”_

  
  


She does not mind The Dark. She has been looking forward to The Dark for as long as she can remember—her spirit says so. The Dark is freeing, and nothing hurts here. 

So _where?_

A dawn washes over The Dark suddenly. It’s… Red.

She _remembers_ red.

> _“Let It.”_

  
  


She can’t. Something is hurting.

Katara wakes with a scorching pain in her lungs and something firm on her mouth. Abruptly she is filled with careful air, her chest rising and falling languidly in a motion that she does not quite feel, and the numbness subsides fractionally with a touch of dizziness. Someone is kissing her.

“ _Aang—_ “ 

_Aang?_

“s-she’s _not warming up_ —“

She means to look, but her eyelids are heavy still and the mouth slanted over hers—the only other feeling in all of her body, where it’s _warmest_ —shifts and presses, pulls the air from her and just as gently pushes it back. The warmth readjusts. More air, warmer this time. A strange tingling sensation spreads out from her chest.

Wetness bubbles up and out of her mouth and before she knows it she is coughing, a loud, harrowing rattle. A terrible burning spreads down the back of her throat and on instinct she jerks, rolling to her side with a great gasp for breath. In that very same moment her eyes crack open, stinging with tears that don’t fall, blurred with the bulbs of leaking ice that hang from her lashes—

and there it is. The red.

Untold relief washes over her mind. Her awareness, little that it is, she _knows_ , is fading by the second. Her gaze spots with black. “T-Thank—” The words practically drag themselves out of her mouth. “Y-You’re okay…”

Someone behind her is crying. Arms wrap around her, dragging her back. A short scream of pain tears past her trembling lips at the pressure. Frostbite, _everywhere_ , and bringing The Dark with it. She closes her eyes to the sudden glow that dances across the corner of her vision, a familiar comfort. She leans toward it. Reaching. Waiting. 

For long, long seconds The Light is the only thing that Katara knows—and then she sleeps.

* * *

There is a scorching pressure at her back. She realizes vaguely that she is naked and surrounded by water.

 _“I-I’m c-cold_.”

Is that her voice, barely a whisper? A sharp gasp sounds in her ear.

 _“_ I-I’m _c-cold_.” She says again.

“Shh, I know.” Hands run down her arms and back again. The water is starting to warm—or maybe she’s just now starting to feel it. “I know, I know.”

Katara blinks her eyes open and is met with a ceiling of ice that shines orange from firelight. The scorching pressure at her back shifts; she realizes that someone is under her, her head is resting on their shoulder and her back flush to their chest. She tears her blank stare from the ceiling and catches a glimpse of silky black locks.

“Z-Zuko?” 

A shuddering sigh. “Yes.”

“W-Why am I n-naked?”

Zuko laughs but all Katara hears are the cracks in it.

“We’re healing you.” 

“H-Healing?” Katara pauses, dizzy. “ _We_?”

The trickling sound of moving water rings out, and it takes a moment of feeling only tiny plates of pressure in her distant mind for her to realize that she’s being moved, though not from Zuko’s lap. They're turning—she sees ice walls and a concave pit in the frozen dirt, the source of the firelight—and then she sees him. 

On the opposite end of the basin is Aang. He sits in the water in tattered clothing, the lines of his arrows and slits of his eyes a bright and eerie white. His hands emit a scatter of sparkles across the rippling surface, glowing blue with the ability to heal. Katara tries to reach out to him, a movement so automatic that she does not realize that it doesn’t register.

“Zuko.” Panic swells like bile in her mouth, a whimper of fear slipping out. “ _I-I c-can’t move._ ”

“Katara—“

Loud, deafening cracks groan out from the ice. “W-Why c-can’t I _move?!”_

 _“Be still.”_ The vibration of ten thousand lifetimes runs through her. It is Aang, and it is not. Wavering around his shoulders is suddenly a clear image of a white-eyed woman with glowing tribal tattoos written down her face like tears, and she is _looking_ right at her. _“Be still, Daughter. You are of_ my _blood. You are of La. You will heal.”_

Heal _what?_

The visage rises over and near. She thinks that Zuko must be tightening his hold; the scorching from her back runs down her arms, now.

“ _Rest_.” Aang says, though he has not moved, and Katara suddenly finds that she cannot ignore her fatigue. _“Rest…”_

* * *

When Katara wakes next it’s to crowded heat and _feeling_ in her fingers and toes, though she can’t exactly remember why that’s so important to her. She blinks her eyes open slowly, taking in steady, deep breaths as the walls of ice echo with the nearby sound of roaring fire. The weight on her chest and the warmth at her back break the lingering haze on her mind. She looks down and tightens her arms without thinking. 

Aang is wrapped around her, his ear pressed firmly to the spot underneath her heart as he sleeps, his arms tight around her hips. It takes much too long for her liking to notice that there are a second pair of arms around her—around _them_ —and Katara turns her head and catches a glimpse of long, inky black hair spilling over her shoulder.

She relaxes the tension that’s hemmed up in her body— _he’s alive, he’s alive, thank Tui he’s_ alive—though it does not stop the little thrill of shock that shoots down her spine at being in such a position, no doubt to keep warm. She lets out a careful sigh, not wanting to disturb the silence of the moment with her tears, to _wake_ , but it is too late already. Aang is looking at her when she lets her gaze fall away from Zuko’s hair, and there are tears brimming in his own wide gray eyes.

Katara can’t help herself. She raises a hand to his cheek and lets out a rusty laugh. “Hi, sweetie.”

Aang’s eyes squeeze shut for the briefest of moments, the tears daring to escape. She waits for him to speak but he doesn’t. He only presses his face back into her abdomen and _cries_. Zuko’s reaction is swifter than her own, for suddenly he is there, leaning over and lifting his hand to smooth down Aang’s back.

“What is it?” His voice is a quiet rasp tinged with sleep but is no less urgent. “Aang?”

“Hi, Zuko.”

Aang’s hold tightens and Zuko’s gasp is more of a sharp inhale than anything else. His eyes widen when they find hers, and the hand at Aang’s back lifts with a tremble. 

“You’re awake.” Zuko whispers it as if just speaking the words will make it untrue. “Spirits, _you’re awake_.”

Katara smiles slowly, running one hand in soothing sweeps across Aang’s nape and the other reaching to run through the ends of Zuko’s swaying hair. 

“It’s good to see you, too,” she chuckles. “you really— _oh_. Okay—“

Zuko drapes over her with a groan of sound that alarms her, his nose pressing oddly into the slope of her neck, and the hand he still has at the small of her back fists in the fabric there.

“ _—okay_ , I’m okay, Zuko. I’m—Aang?”

“But you _weren’t_ , Katara.” Aang whispers reverently. He has dislodged himself from her abdomen to sit up, and he looks down at her with an indescribable pain wrought on his face. “For _days_. You—you—“

“Katara,” She feels more than hears Zuko’s call of her name. He sits up, too, his arms caging her in and his hair creating a curtain; it is impossible to ignore the dark circles he sports, impossible to ignore the glisten of horrors come to pass in his eyes. “You _died._ ”

> _“The truth of The Ocean is bitter, Daughter.”_

  
  


A familiar and deep tired tugs suddenly at her being. A slow remembering, like shaking snow from tundra pines. Katara says nothing as Zuko slowly sits back—and the image of them, of Aang on one side and Zuko on the other, the very same look of relief and fear all at once, imprints itself in her mind. Something unnameable in her chest blooms, and she hisses as she tries to sit up, already unable to help the tiny fleck of exasperation that comes to her as their hands quickly reach to help. Aang slips behind her and she immediately leans into him as his arms wrap around her middle again. Katara reaches for Zuko, and nothing about how _easily_ he laces their fingers rings anything but _right_ in the back of her mind.

“I remember, I think.” She says finally, recalling the voice of her mother and strange light. The fading image of Zuko falling out of her desperate grasp flashes across her mind. Katara reaches with her free hand and rests it over Zuko’s heart, an ache in her own. She clears her throat. “But I _don’t_ care—” Aang makes a long sound of disagreement from where he is hiding in her shoulder. “I don’t care because I… I _know_ I died protecting you, Zuko. To _save your life_. I don’t know what else happened but it doesn’t matter. You’re alive. I’d do it all. Over. Again. I’d do it for the rest of time if it means that you will get to live.”

Katara watches tears brim in Zuko’s blazing stare. “ _Enough_ , both of you.” Aang says it just as Zuko furrows his brow and fixes his mouth for a reply. Aang starts to rock her gently, his hands gripping and loosening and gripping again. “Please, no more talk about dying. Please. I _can’t_ take it right now.”

Katara’s stomach churns, as uncomfortable as it is loud and terribly timed. The sound ricochets around the ice walls, and a blush heats her cheeks in the following silence. “U-Um…” Do they even _have_ food?

The silence doesn’t last long. Aang cracks first, his weak laugh shaking his shoulders. Zuko’s telltale snort of amusement is quick to follow, even as he hastily wipes at his eyes and stands and makes his way to the fire, where he reaches around the other side of the pit to produce something wrapped in seaweed.

Her brow furrows at that.

“This will only take a few minutes, Katara.” Zuko assures her, holding the bundle over the fire. He watches like a winter-hungry snakehawk when she starts to eat the fish from the safety of her spot between Aang’s legs. She watches him back as she makes an effort to nibble at the fat strip of kelp the fish had been wrapped in. His lips were blue the last time she saw him. She can’t help but drink in his healthy pallor, the firelight dancing across his eyes.

The tired tugs harder once she’s full and has sipped at enough water for both Aang and Zuko’s liking. They do not protest when she verbally claims her sleepiness, they only shift when she shifts, encasing themselves around her. Katara thinks nothing more of why Zuko fits his knee between hers and tightens his arms around her, only sighs in content when Aang finally slots himself against her front and keeps his nose at her pulse.

* * *

> _“Let it.”_
> 
> _“Why, Mother?”_
> 
> _“The Ocean will tell none of It’s secrets, but we know them. The Ocean is bitter, even to its own. It will not tell you that you are as Cursed as our Brothers in return for waking as Living Dead. It will not tell you that as once The Cold visits, The Cold stays. No, Daughter—“_

It’s The Cold that wakes her.

> “— _but your blood will. Tales from our Living Dead say that this will hurt.”_

  
  


A whimper works its way out of Katara as she rouses alone. There is no heat at her back or front but the fire is going; she draws near it as a flymoth would to the flame, shoving her hands into her sleeves as she folds her legs under her and soaks in its warmth. She notices belatedly that the clothes she wears are Zuko’s; his thick outer robe, tattered at the ends where it had ripped on the skating ice. She presses a hand to her temple. Her head is throbbing with a thick, distant pain.

In the ground near the center of the fire pit is a divot full of seaweed, but she ignores the prospect of food to stare at how the fire feeds on nothing but chunks of rock. The orange licks are full and steady, as if held together by force of will.

She wonders if it’s Aang’s or Zuko’s—and where _are_ they?

Katara lets her gaze roam around the area frantically, noting that, strangely, the ceiling is much too high for it to be a natural cave, and then her resting place grabs her attention. Her parka has become the makeshift bedding with what looks like Aang’s cape, stretched out over a wide slab of raised stone. On the opposite side is an arched alcove and embedded in its wall are a set of stairs, disappearing into the curve of ice. She pulls her borrowed robe tighter around her as her gaze trails upward. Questions pile themselves on her tongue as she starts to add up the signs. 

Where is this place? What happened to their ship—and the people on it? How on earth did Aang get to them? How long has she been asleep? _How long_ have they been here; and _why_ so deep down? The ceiling of the cave is seriously, _seriously_ far up.

And _why_ can’t she get warm?

A feeling of worry starts to gnaw at her as she inches closer to the flames, and she knows that when she takes the breath to ask her unanswered questions that she will probably not like the answers.

“Well. Lucky me.” Katara drops her gaze away from the ceiling at the sound of Zuko’s voice. He is standing at the bottom of the steps near the alcove, a smile starting to pull across his face as he looks at her. “I was just thinking about how nice it would be for you to be awake so that I wouldn’t have to try.”

Katara clears her throat of disuse as she stands shakily, relief washing over her and her body suddenly singing with the need to touch. “I th-think it’s safe to say that _I-I’m_ the lucky one.”

“Oh, please. Don’t you know that there is nothing more dangerous than waking a waterbender?”

“W-Where did you get this idea th-that waterbenders are d-dangerous?” Katara cocks her head innocently as Zuko nears. “I’ve heard n-nothing but nice things about them.”

Zuko’s rumbling laughter is more comforting than their trademark banter, but not as comforting as his arms fitting snugly around her waist. Katara wraps her arms around his neck and melts into his hold with a halted sigh, her throat tightening as she presses her face into his shoulder and catches his scent. The feeling of almost losing him is still raw in her heart, and the flashes of memory— _lips blue, unresponsive, coughing up sea water, falling,_ again—spike tears behind her clenched eyes. 

“Where were you?” She asks quietly once her teeth no longer chatter. “Where is Aang?”

“Aang is near and you needn’t worry.” Zuko smooths his hands down her back. “I swear that I have not left your side, Katara. I don’t plan on it anytime soon.”

Katara tips her head to look at him, her heart skipping as she raises her palm to his scarred cheek. She remembers when she woke last, then. How he’d looked at her when he’d told her that she’d died. She realizes with a sharp pain in her chest that Zuko must feel a heartache tenfold compared to her own; that he must have come to from his own brink of death to her being _gone_.

> _“The truth of The Ocean is bitter, Daughter.”_

  
  


“I’m happy I saved you. You have _no idea_ .” She says, pouring every ounce of sincerity into her words, her tears spilling over. “And I’m sorry that I left. I’m sorry. But you _have_ to understand—for _you_ —“

“Shh. I know. I _know_.”

“Good.” Katara nods as Zuko rests his forehead against hers and gently as ever warms away the wet on her cheeks with his hands. A large shadow of fatigue fills in at the edges of her being; a chill creeping in on her from the familiar call of The Ocean beyond the ice. “I’m tired, Zuko.” She tells him, skittish. “Will you lay with me? I-It’s… _cold_ , in here. I’d sleep better if you’re with me.”

> _“The Dark will come.”_

  
  


Zuko leans back to study her but Katara melds herself to his front so that she can keep his warmth and hide in his hair.

“You’ve been sleeping a lot, Katara. Why not try to stay awake a little longer? We can talk. I know you must be hungry again. You can even bathe, if you’d like.”

Katara perks up a little at that. “A bath?”

“Yes, a bath.” Zuko chuckles, pulling away to guide her towards the bed. “I’ll heat it myself. But you will eat first.”

“Are you bossing me around, Fire Lord?”

“It certainly wasn’t a suggestion, Your Highness.”

Katara quiets. “Is Aang coming back soon?”

“Any moment, I swear.”

“Zuko?” Katara squeezes his hand before he can return to the fire, and the open, gently imploring look he gives her makes her pulse skip. In truth, she does not even know what it is she wants to ask, all she knows is that she wants him near; to hear his voice and to make sure that he’s _there_ and not at the bottom of the sea. _Not_ a flicker of rapidly disappearing color in her dreams. In truth, she doesn’t want him out of _arm's reach_. She wants to touch him at all times. She wants to soak up every lick of his warmth. To keep assuring herself that he’s not just there, but _here_ , too. 

> _“Let it.”_

  
  


At once, reality crashes and sinks over her mind, heavy with the weight of her mother’s Story Telling words _._ Her heart twists as she stares at Zuko, seeing and unseeing— _lips blue, unresponsive, coughing up sea water, falling, again and again and again_ —three times, she’d lost him to The Ocean. And _she_ died, too.

Her most private of fears.

“ _Katara_.” Zuko comes forward as the fresh tears fall, sweeping her right back into his hold where she wants to be. Needs to be, she thinks. Oh, Tui and La. “Katara, what—?”

“Three times, you slipped through my fingers.” She cries. “You—you just kept getting _ripped away from me_. Every t-time I thought I could breathe again—just w-when I thought I’d— _ripped away_ , Zuko—b-but I’m _alive_ too _—I failed her.”_

“ _Shh,_ ” She’s shaking again, her legs weak under her even as the distant sound of ice cracking answers her spewing emotion. Zuko lifts her into his lap with a strange ease that she cannot remember being there before, is quick to cradle her to his chest and tuck her head under his chin. “I’m here, I’m fine,” there’s a crack in Zuko’s voice too. He takes her hand from where she has fisted it in his tunic to press over his heart as she did when she first woke, right above the edges of Azula’s mark. “Feel that?” He places his hand over hers. “That’s because of you, Katara. The last thing I remember about the storm is being colder than I’ve ever been in my life, but I didn’t _die_ . You didn’t _fail_ anyone, I’m here because of you. It doesn’t matter if I got away—”

_“I-It does.”_

“What matters is that we’re both here.”

“ _Z-Zuko._ Y-You’re the _Fire Lord_ a-and I _let you f-fall_ —“

“And _you’re_ the first Princess of the Southern Water Tribe in over 400 years.” Zuko rocks her slowly on the edge of the bed, his hands firm where they move to rest over her hip and under her knees. “I’m replaceable, Katara. Azula is well enough thanks to _you_. You’re invaluable. More precious than anything. More precious than me—“

> _“Protect the blood of The Sun even if it means becoming a Dead Man. It is the only choice.”_

  
  


“No! You _d-don’t_ understand! Th-The story _ends there_ , Zuko!” A loud fissure of cracks creep up the ice walls. “You’re a _firebender_ and you were _underwater for t-too long_ b-but _I died too!_ Zuko.” His blood and hers, loud and clear and breaking her heart. _“It ends!_ I sh-should've _let it. N-Nothing can s-stop—_ you’re not _safe—”_

“What in Agni’s name are you talking about, Katara? I _didn’t die._ Please. _Shh—no_ , Katara—you’re breaking the walls again. _Katara—_ ”

Searing, white-hot pain and nothing else. Her most private of fears.

> _“Few become Living Dead, Katara. You must not let this happen to you.”_

“Katara?” 

> _“Why, Mother?”_
> 
> “ _Our People will fear your new strengths. As Cursed as our Brothers, Daughter. Tales from our Living Dead say that this will hurt.”_

  
“Katara!”

> _“Why, Mother?”_
> 
> _“Because The Wind cannot protect you anymore and The Sun does not.”_
> 
> _“What does that mean?”_
> 
> _Blue beads made their way onto the ends of her last braid. “There,” her mother had patted her head and given her the mirror. “All done.”_
> 
> _“Done?” She knew her braids were pretty, for her mother had done them herself. She did not use the mirror. “What about the Tale?”_
> 
> _Sadness in her mother’s voice, then. “There is no more Tale, little koi. The blood of The Sun has been tainted. There is no more blood of The Wind in this world to share the rest of the story. Those Brothers are long gone.”_
> 
> _“I don’t understand.”_
> 
> _“I know, Daughter. You might, one day.”_


End file.
